Bangladesh closing notorious 18th-century prison in Dhaka

Bangladesh is closing its notorious 18th-century prison where sensational political killings over decades have targeted people on both sides of the South Asian country's 1971 war for independence from Pakistan.
The government wants to reopen the old, dilapidated Dhaka Central Jail as a museum to its tumultuous past, while giving its inmates better accommodations on the outskirts of Dhaka, the capital. The new jail will have an uninterrupted power supply, a 200-bed hospital and a job training center.
"Such initiatives will help criminals change their way of living and their thinking as well as motivate them to return to normal life," Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said yesterday as she opened the new jailhouse on the capital's outskirts.

The Dhaka Central Jail, with architectural marks that reflect Mughal and British histories, has been chronically overcrowded. It now has about 8,000 inmates, though it was built to accommodate just 2,600. Inmates live in cramped, unsanitary conditions.
Authorities plan to move the inmates to the new facility over the next month. "We will do it slowly, as security is an issue that needs to be taken care of very carefully," said Col. Fazlul Kabir, additional inspector general of police (prisons).
Bangladesh was born in 1971 through a bloody nine-month war. The war broke out after military rulers in Pakistan, then West Pakistan, refused to hand over power to majority Bengali politicians led by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Hasina's father, after his party won most seats in a 1970 election.

Rahman was confined to Dhaka Central Jail numerous times before he became Bangladesh's founding leader. Many Communist politicians were also jailed, as were intellectuals who were involved in the nationalist movement.
"During the long political career of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, this central jail was his second home," Forman Ali, a former jail superintendent, wrote in a newspaper article on Saturday.
Bangabandhu is an honorary title meaning "Friend of Bengal" given to him in a massive rally in Dhaka following his release from jail in 1969 in a politically motivated sedition case.